Advice | 2 Handed Backhand Dinks

James Ignatowich

Hey guys, this is James Ignatowich, and today we are going to talk about when to put two hands on the backhand.

Use Two Hands When You Have Time During Dinking

James Ignatowich

The first situation where I would highly recommend getting comfortable putting two hands on the backhand is when you have time—when you’re dinking. So, if your opponent hits a higher dink or a slower dink—some people call that a lift dink—when that’s the case, I would highly recommend getting comfortable putting two hands on the backhand and trying to impart some topspin on the ball.

Topspin dinking is, in my opinion, the best way to start to take control of a kitchen line dinking exchange.

Use Two Hands for Aggressive Dinks

One important thing about putting two hands on the backhand dink is that when you do so, you should be doing it for an aggressive dink. So, if you have time in this situation with the lift dink to put two hands on the backhand dink, you should be looking to do something with the ball when you hit it.

I’m not just putting two hands on the backhand dink for no reason—just to push it into the court.

Target Options for Two-Handed Backhand Dinks

There’s going to be a situation where you want to reset the ball or reset the dink with two hands—that’s another story. When you’re looking to get aggressive with a two-handed backhand dink, you want to go either to the inside foot of the right-side player in front of you if you’re on the left (figure 1), or all the way crosscourt for a hard, aggressive roll (figure 2).

(figure 1)

(figure 2)

For me, those are the two best spots to hit two-handed backhand dinks. Because if you go right down the line with it, you’re going over the highest part of the net and the shortest amount of court.

If you go crosscourt with your two-handed backhand dink, you’re going over the lowest part of the net and the most amount of space. So, if you ever watched me play, I hit two-handed backhand dinks pretty hard—and that’s because there’s a lot more space going crosscourt than there is going down the line.

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